S African Afrigen vaccinates COVID mRNA using Modern data | Coronavirus pandemic News

The vaccine candidate is the first mRNA vaccine designed, developed and produced on a laboratory scale on the African continent.

South African Afrigen Biologics has used the public sequence of Moderna’s COVID-19 mRNA vaccine to make its version of the shot, which can be tested on humans before the end of the year, Afrigen CEO said on Thursday.

The vaccine candidate would be the first to do so based on a widely used vaccine without the support and approval of the developer. It is also the first laboratory-scale mRNA vaccine designed, developed and produced on a laboratory scale in Africa.

The World Health Organization (WHO) last year selected a consortium, including Afrigen, for a pilot project to provide funding to poor and middle-income countries. Knowledge of COVID-19 vaccines, PVizer, BioNTech and Moderna, the market leaders in the COVID mRNA vaccine, refused to accept the WHO’s request to share technology and experience.

The WHO and its partners hope that the center will help to overcome the significant differences between rich nations and poorer countries in obtaining vaccine doses, 99 percent of all African vaccines are imported and negligible locally manufactured residue.

During the pandemic, rich countries collected most of the world’s vaccine supply.

Biovac, a South African vaccine producer in the south, will be the center’s first technology recipient. Afrigen also agreed to help train companies in Argentina and Brazil.

In September, the WHO Cape Town Center decided to go alone after not taking Pfizer and Moderna on board, and both argued that any technology transfer should be overseen due to the complexity of the manufacturing process.

The modern vaccine was chosen because of the large amount of public information and its commitment not to comply with patents during the pandemic. It is unclear what will happen next.

The UN-sponsored Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) said it was talking to Moderna about possible access to some of its patents.

Under pressure to make drugs in lower-income countries, Modern has announced plans to build mRNA vaccine factories in Africa, but production is still a long way off.

Biovac has approved the completion and completion of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the final stages of production, even though the drug will come from Europe.

“We didn’t copy Moderna, we developed our processes because Modern didn’t give us technology,” Petro Terblanche, Afrigen’s managing director, told Reuters.

“We started with the modern sequence, because that gives us what we think is the best starting material. But this is not a Modern vaccine, it’s an Afrigen mRNA hub vaccine, ”Terblanch said.

He said, in collaboration with the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, that the first batch of microliter-scale COVID-19 mRNA vaccine laboratory batches would be made at Cape Town facilities.

Terblanche said it was working on a next-generation mRNA vaccine that did not require freezing temperatures to be stored, required for Pfizer and Moderna doses, and would be better suited to Africa’s hot conditions with poor health facilities and infrastructure. .

Afrigen was hiring staff and receiving training from international partners including Thermo Fisher Scientific, he said.

“We’ll probably do a lot of our clinical trials in six months, [meaning] … Suitable for humans. And the goal is November 2022, ”Terblanch added.

Online training for other companies to make the plan began with manufacturers in Brazil and Argentina last year. Afrigen hoped to include more next month.